Emily Feng
Appearances
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
It began really in the early 1980s in the middle of the Cold War under President Ronald Reagan. At the time, the U.S. was competing with the Soviet Union both for political influence but also in the ideological sphere. And so Reagan gave a speech in 1982 where he spoke about funding what he called the infrastructure of democracy.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And what resulted is billions of dollars in foreign assistance funding through agencies like USAID, through the State Department, and then the creation of other foundations like the National Endowment of Democracy.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And when the Cold War ended, all that funding evolved into going to support humanitarian work abroad, civil society work around the world, especially in countries that are authoritarian or were devastated by war. So think countries like Iran or China or now Ukraine.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
It's been done under the umbrella of trying to shrink the federal government and its budget. And it's really been driven by Elon Musk and President Trump. Musk has also accused these agencies that I just mentioned of, for example, USAID, of being behind what he called a hoax of Russian influence in the Trump administration.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
He also said the USAID agency spreads leftist propaganda without giving evidence. And then he's also been resharing posts on X, the social media site that he owns that has implied the National Endowment for Democracy is a CIA front. Again, no evidence. But what's interesting to me is this is exactly the same kind of criticism that authoritarian countries like China have long said about U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
foreign assistance funding. And this reversal now on cutting, you know, cutting foreign assistance funding is is notable because this was actually kind of an issue that Republicans have long championed, especially Republicans like Marco Rubio, who is now the U.S. Secretary of State. He's now in charge of defending and implementing these foreign assistance cuts. But when he was a U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
senator, he was a big proponent of foreign aid. He saw it as essential to U.S. national security by promoting U.S. democratic values abroad. And he said that cutting it would not bring us to balance. But now he's been a big defender of these cuts.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Yeah. U.S. funding was supporting basically the last remaining traces of Chinese civil society. And with the cuts, China has not said very much publicly because, honestly, they could just sit back and do nothing to reap the benefits of this U.S. retreat and funding soft power.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
Because the groups that are seeing their funding cut are the ones that really were a long-term nuisance to China I'm talking about. labor rights organizations, civil society groups, human rights investigation organizations. A lot of them had been forced to flee from China, given the political controls there. And that's why they needed funding from the U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And I talked to seven of these groups focused on China, but now based in the U.S. Because they don't have funding anymore, they are already furloughing or laying off their employees. And a lot of them have paused their programs. Now, there's evidence that China's moving in already to fill this U.S. funding gap in just the last few weeks. Big caveat, funding soft power is not China's strong suit.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
They're often really heavy handed about it or inefficient, but they're making an effort. And I actually managed to talk directly with a Chinese state representative here in D.C. who answers to the government and China. They requested anonymity when meeting because they're not authorized to speak publicly. But they're here in the U.S.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
because they reached out to at least one China-focused group who is at risk of losing their funding and proposed to this group. You know, instead of criticizing people and organizations in China publicly, perhaps they, as a Chinese government representative, could facilitate private conversations with China to achieve the social change that the organization wants.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And one of the groups that this representative was in contact with said they kind of felt like this was a tactic to buy their silence. But the Chinese representative argued it was a more effective way for organizations to work. So you're already seeing this competition between the U.S. and China given the risk of losing all the civil society funding.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
I would argue this matters because the US and China have been competing on technology, on political influence, on industrial standards, and definitely on soft power. And the US is cutting back its foreign presence and its foreign assistance funding at the very moment that China has stepped up and pledged tens of billions of dollars more to in places like Africa.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Roundup: Kash Patel Confirmed As FBI Chief; China Sees Opportunity As USAID Gets Cut
And so the potential trade-offs have never been bigger.